1m2aSandbox

Yes, we’re one step closer to Cora
being permanently ensconced in a big-girl bed!


So she’s been sleeping on a toddler air mattress next to her
crib for a couple weeks, and she’s handling it like a pro.
We’ve had some emotional wrestling matches over naptime
– she’s starting to give it up, and would just get up
and walk out of the room. But we’ve finally worked it out,
and now she knows she has to stay in the room and take “quiet
time” until I come get her. She usually cries and demands,
“Mommy! Come. In. Here. Right. Now!” for the entire
forty-five minutes, but at least she doesn’t leave her bed.


Other than naptime, though, it’s been smooth sailing, so
Thursday we took one more step – we went mattress
shopping.

Cora is, like any two-year-old, insanely
delicious to kiss on. We’ve come up with several different
ways of loving on her, and started saying things like,
“I’m just going to take a little nibble!” or
“I’m going to yum on you!” While this was fun and
cute for a while, Cora has declared that enough is enough.


Apparently, her legalistic two-year-old brain has decided that
“nibbling on you” means we are actually taking some
part of herself away, and she’s begun freaking out at the
thought of all her “nums” and “nibbles”
being eaten by other people. So when my mom says, “I’m
just coming in for a little nibble!” and kisses Cora’s
neck as she walks by, Cora now shrieks, “No! No! No! Put it
back! Put my nibble back on!”

Today’s blog is part of a series I
started a few weeks ago – Staying On Top of Family Meals.
We’ve already looked at Planning Ahead and Cooking Ahead, and
now we’re getting down to the nuts and bolts of each meal,
starting with breakfast.


Breakfast was never a big deal to me until Maddie started school.
Suddenly we were on a time crunch and everyone was tired; I’d
rarely awakened the girls before school started, preferring to let
them sleep until they were ready to wake up. But school waits for
no child, so we had to adapt to a schedule. And since I’m a
big believer in breakfast (and you are too, RIGHT?) I knew I had to
get organized.

Last weekend the girls and I went to see a
ballet of Peter and the Wolf. It’s one of our favorite pieces
of music, we’ve got a story of it in one of our fairy tale
books, and we’ve even found a video version of the story at
the library, so the girls know the tale inside and out. The ballet
was only twenty minutes long, and I knew it was the perfect sort of
thing for a cultural evening out.


The night went pretty predictably: the girls were entranced, only
slightly critical of the performance itself, and Cora was scared of
the wolf. She’d seen the wolf portrayed as a cartoon, and
drawn out in the book, and knew he wasn’t real, but
c’mon – that music’s pretty ominous and scary all
by itself. As we sat in the audience before the show started, Cora
told herself over and over again, “The wolf’s not
coming out here. He’s only going on stage. The wolf’s
not coming out here. He’s only going on stage.” I could
see real nerves in the white knuckles clutching my knee, but I
could also see the excitement and anticipation coming across her
face – the excitement that draws us into those
“Don’t go into that dark creepy room!” films time
after time.

When Maddie was a toddler in New York,
we’d hit our local playground every day. Every morning
– and some evenings as well – we’d be swinging
and sliding for a good hour or two. I’d chase Maddie all over
the playground, going down slides with her and hanging from bars
together. We’d kick the soccer ball and make water balloons,
and even when I was heavily pregnant with Cora I still got my daily
workout on the jungle gym.


I’d see the moms and nannies sitting on benches on the side
while their kids played and swear I’d never be THAT person
– how could I teach my child how to interact with other kids
if I wasn’t there to correct her, teach her manners and how
to behave in society? And wasn’t it, um, my job to play with
her? I mean, Maddie had her friend Naomi that she played with, but
Naomi’s mom and I still followed around and participated in
tea parties and climbed through tunnels with them. Play time
wasn’t time for Mommy to check out.

In church yesterday our pastor talked
about healing and prayer. During his kids’ sermon he started
off discussing all the ways we can prevent getting sick, or the
things we can do ourselves when we get sick to make ourselves feel
better, like taking medicine. Maddie was sitting right at his feet,
and she got excited and yelled out, “My mommy makes really
good cough syrup!” “I’m sure she does,” he
smiled indulgently, before turning to move on. Maddie pressed
forward. “No, I mean she makes REALLY good syrup,” she
insisted, causing him to look at my slightly askance.

This is the second in my series, “Staying On Top of Family Meals”. Last week I talked about the importance of planning ahead, and today we’re going to look at cooking ahead.

Now, the phrase “cooking ahead” implies there will be actual cooking involved, but even if you’re not that kind of girl, you can do the sous chef work that we all do – dicing up fruit, packaging the goldfish into small containers or Ziplocs – ahead of time, so that life doesn’t overwhelm you when you’re running late and trying to get out the door. So even if you’re a Stouffer’s or Pizza Hut kind of girl, you should keep reading this article.